


Whatever It Takes

by cenotaphy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean Hates Witches, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Hugging, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mark of Cain, Platonic and non-platonic embracing, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Season/Series 10, Stolen Grace, Witch Curses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 03:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9529694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cenotaphy/pseuds/cenotaphy
Summary: A witch casts a pain spell on Cas. Dean does what has to be done, and damn the consequences. Sam just tries to hold everything together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in Season 10, at some point before The Executioner's Song.

The hex is a pulsing, lightless thing on Cas's chest, like a spider-legged blob of tar. Every time it twitches, Sam can feel Cas's body stiffen in responsive agony. The pain, Sam guesses, is coming in waves; mostly Cas just shakes and groans, soft strangled sounds forced out through a clenched jaw, but Sam can mark the crests because Cas _screams_ , his whole spine bending backwards like a bow as he arches off the floor. It's a terrifying sound, mostly because, if Sam thinks about it, he's rarely seen Cas make _any_ kind of noise in response to pain. Certainly not these hoarse, full-bodied shouts that the angel is clearly trying to muffle. Sam wants to tell him to just let go, to not worry about fighting the pain, trying to hold it in. And actually, it's almost worse when Cas is able to stifle the screams, because then Sam can hear the cries from the basement.

 _Oh, God, Dean_ , he thinks, as Cas relaxes on the downswing of another wave and a high-pitched wail can be heard floating through the door to the stairs. _Come back from this_.

He hates, he fucking _hates_ feeling so helpless. When the spell had kicked in he'd dropped to his knees and grabbed Cas by the shoulder, intending to steady him. But Cas had almost immediately begun convulsing so hard that Sam had needed both hands, and then he'd had to brace Cas against his chest to keep his head from slamming into the wood floor, and now he's holding Cas practically in his lap while the angel shudders in constant, fluctuating agony, and there's _nothing_ else he can do.

As if to punctuate the thought, Cas's breath catches again and he twists sideways, curling halfway into a fetal position while his hands, already clenched into fists, go bone-white at the knuckles. Beneath his many layers of clothing, Sam can feel him trembling.

"Easy," says Sam uselessly, because what else can he say? Cas's stolen grace is too weak to fight off the effects of the hex, and trying to remove it manually—

(Cas had protested, shrinking back into Sam's arms as Dean approached, shaking his head violently even as he started to spasm with a fresh wave from the hex.

"Don't, no, it could pass to you," he'd gasped, and Dean had ignored him and buried his fingers in the pulpy black mass and _wrenched_. Nothing had happened, except that Cas had thrown back his head and screamed, his true voice slipping free—just for a moment, just long enough to make Sam's ears throb and shatter every decorative plate on the mantelpiece.

Dean had jerked back, a stricken look passing over his face for the briefest instant before his features settled into the cold, hard anger that had become all too familiar since he'd taken on the Mark. And then he'd turned toward the witch.)

—had failed. So all Sam can do, now, is hang on to Cas and say these frantic, pointless words and wait. Wait for his brother to finish torturing the witch for the counterspell. Wait for his brother to come back out of the Pit, come back out of the violent hell to which he's tethered. Again.

So—"Easy," he says again, tightening his grip on the angel's shoulders. He can feel Cas's hand on his leg, gripping his knee. "Cas, it's okay. It's okay." And then, there it comes, Cas's normally impassive face screwed tight with agony, Cas's jaw gaping around a scream which lilts higher and higher into an endless keening that tears at Sam's eardrums, just the safe side of deafening—Cas's true voice, beating at the walls of his vessel, held at bay by what Sam can only assume is pure willpower.

"I've got you," he says, quietly, not sure if Cas can hear him. He moves one hand from where it's braced against the angel's arm, brushes it against Cas's clenched fist. Sam cups the curled knuckles in his palm, runs his thumb against the pulse point in Cas's wrist, doesn't make a sound when Cas grabs his hand, squeezes it so hard Sam can hear the joints crunching in complaint. 

It passes, eventually. Or, at least, it ebbs to the point that Cas returns to lucidity, opens his eyes, manages to draw in a slow, shuddering breath. In the accompanying measure of relative quiet, Sam realizes that no more sounds are floating up the stairs from the basement. His gut clenches.

He looks down at Cas, whose mouth is leaking a slow trickle of blood. Limp in his arms, Cas stares back. His face is upside-down in Sam's field of vision, his features taut and pale. There's a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and Sam wonders if this absurdly mortal detail is due to the effects of the hex, or if it's just another consequence of the stolen grace, of Cas's essence winking out like a dying star.

(She'd refused to lift the hex, and Dean had seized her by the collar and hauled her bodily toward the door to the basement. Sam, on his knees with his arms around Cas, had felt the curl of fear in his gut solidify. He'd been down to the basement. He knew what was down there, the fluorescent lights, the tools the witch used to torment her victims, tease out and bottle their screams. Pain spells were nasty things, the lore said, with nasty ingredients.

Cas knew what was down there, too. He'd made an effort to rise, his face bloodless, contorted with effort. He'd made it perhaps four inches before the hex pulsed on his chest and sent him crashing back down to the floorboards, voice rising in a ragged cry, spine arching so violently Sam thought he could hear vertebrae popping.

" _Dean_." Dean was already halfway to the door, and he hadn't stopped when Cas forced the words out through gritted teeth. "Please—not for me—it's not worth it— _I'm not_ —"

Dean had paused, the basement door half-open. He'd ignored Cas, looked instead at Sam. His expression was still stony, but he'd _looked_ at Sam, and Sam had read the code there. It wasn't a nod, a word, a movement of the lips. But it was a look that said _this needs to be done_ , a look that said _don't try and stop me_ , and Sam had known that on his own face was a look that said _go_.

"Don't—" Dean's voice had wavered, cracked just slightly, like a fracturing glass. "Don't listen, okay?" And he'd gone down the stairs, dragging the witch behind him.)

"Dean," Cas croaks now. The word comes out a little slurred, and Sam realizes Cas must have bitten his tongue. "He's..."

"He's coming," Sam hears himself say. "It's okay. Hang on." He prays that it's true. Every time Dean reaches into that place, that darkness on his arm, it's less of a sure thing that he'll come back. Sam knows this—he's been there himself. And he knows that _Dean_ knows this. Dean knows the cost of dipping down into the madness, of borrowing its dark lick of evil and wielding it like a tool. But he's doing it now, because of Cas—because of _Sam_.

Because it's Sam's fault.

(Sam had missed the witch, that was the problem—missed from twelve feet away, point fucking blank distance. Missed, the bullet whizzing over her shoulders to bury itself in the pastel wall of her quiet suburban living room, and then before he could take aim again she'd flung the pain hex, a black blur of shadow and magic and malevolent intent. Her aim had been better than Sam's, or maybe the spell had homing abilities; in any case it had struck Cas solidly in the chest, knocked him flat on the ground and driven its spidery tendrils into his torso before Sam could cross the distance between them.

Dean had gotten the manacles on her then; locked one around her left wrist as she stood laughing in triumph, fastened the other around her right while she writhed and spat on the ground. Cuffed, she couldn't cast anything else, but there was nothing they could do about the throbbing curse already latched onto Cas.)

So now— _again—_ Sam's let everyone down, and people are hurt and hurting and Cas is fucking dying in his arms and Dean is—Dean is down there in the darkness, digging himself deeper into the throes of the Mark, giving himself back to the things that had him down in Hell—Hell, where Dean only went in the _first_ fucking place because of Sam, all those years ago—Hell, where Dean had become something that he could never describe while meeting Sam's eyes.

Cas is convulsing again, his fingers digging into Sam's kneecap and hand as the angel fights to lie still, to keep his gaze trained forward. And Sam should say something reassuring, he really should. But he can hear the slow, heavy tread of footsteps ascending the basement stairs and the words die in his throat, because he doesn't know what's going to come out of that door.

("Remove it," Dean had snarled, as the last few shards of china tumbled down from the mantelpiece. "Say the counterspell." From the floor, Cas had groaned, a low, gutted sound, half-stifled.

"You think I'm afraid of you?" she'd sneered back. "Go ahead, kill me. You can watch him go mad with the pain.")

The door to the basement stairs opens, and Sam holds his breath, and without realizing it he squeezes Cas's hand, because God help him, he's afraid of what's about to return to them.

But what walks out the door is just a man, in the end. Just Dean, slump-shouldered and weary. His arms are scarlet to the elbow, one cheek is spattered with blood, and a young, very frightened child is looking out of his eyes. He crosses the living room towards them, his feet dragging to a halt while he's still several feet away.

He doesn't look at them. But the incantation falls from his lips like a shower of sparks, sibilant, drilling through silence, and Sam feels rather than hears the tiny sob of relief that goes through Cas as the hex dissipates into thin air.

Sam lets go of Cas, glances at him uncertainly and is rewarded with a faint nod— _I'm alright_ , he can read Cas's expression even upside-down, _thank you, Sam_ —and then, inexorably, Cas's gaze returns to Dean.

"Dean," he says, hoarsely. In a single fluid motion—he's still an angel, Sam thinks, still an angel even with stolen grace rotting him from the inside out—he's on his feet, stepping forward. His hands are lifted, palms up as if in supplication.

Sam looks past him, at Dean, reads his brother's body language like it's his own native tongue, which he supposes in a way it is. Dean is standing at a slight angle to them. Dean's gaze is canted away, towards the window. Dean's expression is neutral except for the way his lips tremble. Dean, Sam can tell, is seconds from bolting.

"Dean," Cas says again.

"Cas—" Dean's voice is wrecked. He won't meet their eyes. "Don't—" He's backing up a little, like a skittish animal, his head lowered and turned a little, his jaw working. He holds his arms away from his body, almost behind him, as if trying to distance himself from the blood that drips down his fingers, as if trying to hide it.

Cas takes another step forward, and Dean shakes his head minutely, bringing one arm in front of him now, a warding-off gesture, a warning.

"Cas," he chokes out again, "I'm—I'm not—"

" _Dean_ ," says Cas for a third time. There's gentleness and gratitude and exasperation and caring all rolled up in the rough sandpaper of his voice, and he reaches out and catches Dean's forearm, wrapping his fingers around Dean's bloody wrist, and Sam watches as something cuts loose in Dean's face. Dean takes a tiny step that's half forward motion, half falling, his whole body crumbling down against Cas's shoulder.

Cas gathers him up, folds Dean against him, stands with his arms wrapped around Dean and Dean's face buried in his shoulder. The afternoon light is pooling in from the gaps in the window blinds, all golden and lovely, making Cas's hair glow, making the blood shine crimson on Dean's hands where he's holding them awkwardly out to the sides, holding them away from Cas's coat even though the whole rest of his body is pressed into Cas like the angel's a shelter, a cure, a raft in a storm-sundered sea.

On the floor, Sam sits back on his heels and thinks to himself that God, he loves these two more than anything else he has in the world. The thought sends a spike of terror through him, because they are, he supposes, his only two anchors in a fractured universe, and yet _they_ are fracturing, too. Dean, only half his face visible over Cas's shoulder, looks exhausted. And Cas—well, a minute ago Cas had been writhing in agony in Sam's arms, and the angel _still_ hadn't wanted to be saved, still hadn't thought he was worth it, because, well, Cas is expecting to die anyway, is waiting to burn out like a candle flame.

Sam catches Dean's eyes, stares up at his brother. His brother the Righteous Man. His brother the Knight of Hell. His brother the lover of pie and cars and classic rock. His brother, who raised a demon blood addict and fell in love with an angel and kept on loving them through a thousand fractures and could never say it aloud. His brother, who'd gone down to Hell and endured his way out and done it all over again and again and would keep doing it.

 _I have to save them_ , Sam thinks. He pushes back the black haze of fear that gnaws at the edges of his mind, always, these days. _I have to save both of them_. He'll do it. He'll do whatever it takes.

**Author's Note:**

> Read the sequel, Whatever You Need, [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9560390).


End file.
